United Nations Climate Change Conference met in Lima, Peru, December 1-14, 2014. The conference aims to keep governments on track towards a universal climate agreement in 2015. The 2014 conference was the first time countries could undergo a review of developed countries' efforts to reduce emmissions.

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, joins Mark Tercek, president and chief executive officer at the Nature Conservancy, to discuss the World Bank Group’s efforts regarding climate change and a global climate agreement in Paris in 2015.

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, joins Mark Tercek, president and chief executive officer at the Nature Conservancy, to discuss the World Bank Group’s efforts regarding climate change and a global climate agreement in Paris in 2015.

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, joins Mark Tercek, president and chief executive officer at the Nature Conservancy, to discuss the World Bank Group’s efforts regarding climate change and a global climate agreement in Paris in 2015.

Following Barack Obama's executive action to give as many as five million immigrants legal status in the United States, Julia Sweig reflects in her column on other potential areas where the President could leave his mark during his last two years in office.

Fellow Michael Levi, CFR's senior fellow for energy and the environment and director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, discusses the new U.S.-China bilateral agreement to cut carbon emissions and the deal's implications for global climate policy.

Fellow Michael Levi, CFR's senior fellow for energy and the environment and director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, discusses the new U.S.-China bilateral agreement to cut carbon emissions and the deal's implications for global climate policy.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the 2014 meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and released a climate change agreement on November 11, 2014. The agreement includes each country's goals for cutting carbon emissions. In 2013, the two countries also signed an agreement to reducing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), emissions that deplete ozone layers.

These four resources will provide an overview of the scientific mechanisms underpinning climate change, provide information about how change will be felt in the United States, and describe some of the policies that could mitigate future changes to the climate.

The 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap details how climate change affects the Department of Defense's operations, how the department will adapt to and mitigate climate change threats, and how the department will coordinate with other entities addressing climate change. The Department of Defense first listed climate change as a threat to national security in its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.

World leaders gathered at a United Nations summit to kick off 15 months of negotiations aimed at finalizing a climate pact next December in Paris. Michael Levi argues that domestic policies rather than international climate talks will determine the fate of global efforts to tackle climate change.

President Barack Obama spoke at the 2014 UN Climate Change Summit on September 23. He announced an initiative to integrate climate resilience planning and data into U.S. international development programs and a plan to reduce carbon emissions.

On the heels of the EPA's announcement of new carbon emission rules, Julia Sweig reflects in her column on the need for leadership from major economies to tackle climate change and on the prospects for cooperation between the United States and Brazil.

The Global Change Research Act was mandated by Congress in 1990 to develop and coordinate "a comprehensive and integrated United States research program which will assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change." Every four years, the National Climate Assessment (also called Climate Change Impacts in the United States) reports scientific consensus on how climate change affects the United States, produced by experts from U.S. government science agencies and from several major universities and research institutes.

CFR Experts Guide

The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.

New Council Special Reports

Campbell evaluates the implications of the Boko Haram insurgency and recommends that the United States support Nigerian efforts to address the drivers of Boko Haram, such as poverty and corruption, and to foster stronger ties with Nigerian civil society.

Koblentz argues that the United States should work with other nuclear-armed states to manage threats to nuclear stability in the near term and establish processes for multilateral arms control efforts over the longer term.

The authors argue that it is essential to begin working now to expand and establish rules and norms governing armed drones, thereby creating standards of behavior that other countries will be more likely to follow.

2014 Annual Report

Learn more about CFR’s mission and its work over the past year in the 2014 Annual Report. The Annual Report spotlights new initiatives, high-profile events, and authoritative scholarship from CFR experts, and includes a message from CFR President Richard N. Haass.Read and download »